As this sounds very serious we have to tell you straight away that we didn’t get lost in Bangkok but our unfortunate taxi driver was not so lucky… But now we are getting ahead of ourselves, so lets get back to the beginning…
We had a good nights sleep and we were taken to Pak Chong with a songthaew. Without any problems we bought the first class bus tickets to Bangkok and got our complementary bottle of water and small package of cookies. However, the bus was not first class nor were the seats… Anyway, the bus took us after a warm and bumpy ride safely to Moh Chit bus station in Bangkok.
Now the problems began… We took our place in the queue for the taxis and once it was our turn the taxi organizer took a long and puzzled look at our hotel address on our printed booking form… It didn’t help that we said it was close by the Democracy Monument and that we could walk from there. No, he ran off and talked to his colleague and then they figured out that below the address written in English the address was written in Thai as well but that didn’t help much either… They kept on asking taxi drivers that simply shook their heads and took other passengers instead. We tried to be helpful and show the hotel on the map that was printed right beside the address, they just looked even more puzzled and shook their heads. They called the hotel and wrote down a long description and one guy ran off to try and get a taxi driver to take us. We have to give it to them that they were extremely helpful and above all persistent.
Finally, they found a driver that probably more out of pity than anything took us in… We got a little hesitant when his car looked like has had its share of collisions – painted over duct tape in various places. Duct tape is good for almost anything, right? As the driver opened the door for us we saw that duct tape indeed is useful as Fredde’s side of the backseat was basically made of duct tape! The driver looked at the instructions from the hotel and our map at basically every red light. We made it to the Democracy Monument without any trouble but once there the driver was completely lost in both heavy traffic and small alleyways. He pulled over and asked for directions a couple of times, no luck… Finally, he called the hotel and got a new long description. He drove around a couple of blocks and what looked like a back alley we saw our beautiful hotel! It looked like an oasis in the middle of the dirty big city.
We would’ve taken a picture of the taped back seat but Fredde couldn’t get the door open… Well, we tipped the driver a little extra and thanked him. He was so helpful and persistent :-). He looked very happy and more than a little relieved as he drove away…
We checked in at our little gem of a hotel and were even more pleasantly surprised when we saw the inside! Also they had taken the towel art to a whole new level.
We got offered by the receptionist that they would pick up some takeaway from a nearby restaurant. We were very tired (and probably looked like it as well) and quickly took her up on her offer. The food was exquisite!
